Beyond Science: Pandora's Box
by Alexandroid99
Summary: Doug Rattman finds himself waking up after going into cryogenic sleep after the events of the comic. His leg injured, he sets off to continue surviving and to find out what happened in the meantime. In a different time, Gordon Freeman survives a traincrash with Alyx and witnesses the explosion of the Citadel ruins, which marks the arrival of a blue box as the Vortigaunts made sure.
1. Chapter 1: Morning Routine With Rattmann

_Somewhere a few miles away from City 17_

"Oh my god!" Alyx said. "The Citadel… What the hell is happening?" Gordon Freeman looked at the sky and saw a blue beam ascending from the ruins of the Citadel into the sky in a blue circularly-shaped light where the clouds were whirling around it. "Woahow! Portal storm!" Alyx yelled as the horizon lit up and an enormous shockwave erupted from the blue beam carrying blue particles in its wake.

 _At the core of the portal storm, in the ruins of the Citadel reactor a few moments earlier_

Purple glowing vortigaunts materialised at the source of the blue beam, the remains of the reactor of City 17. "Taaa" "Taa" "Taaaa" they grunted while positioning themselves around the beam. One of them made a step forward and proclaimed "The Physician is required and must be procured at all cost. Let us fulfill the deed, my kin." "Yeees" some of the others agreed while he was still talking. "The Oncoming Storm must rage upon these lands. The Bringer Of Darkness shall mark the Combines' demise." The other vortigaunts took a step forward, too, and gesturing, they generated little force fields around the beam. "Taaam" "Taaaa" Their grunts were almost like chanting. Then simultaneously, they did a pushing move and the beam became brighter, almost white. It released a devastating blast that blew over miles away, bringing massive destruction in its radius.

 _Many years or decades later, somewhere in the Aperture Science Enrichment Centre_

"You have avoided capture for weeks. What makes you so different?

"It won't be enough." "Why is that?" "You can always ignore your conscience."

"Schizophrenia is a culturally bound phenomenon. Its pattern of expression is filtered through the culturate substrate in which its symptoms develop."

"Is it just coincidence that you've been diagnosed with schizophrenia and now believe a homicidal computer is out to get you? Come on, how likely is that?"

The voices of the memories fell silent as his eyelids began to flutter. The glass dome around the top of the stasis bed opened. He sat up and rubbed his forehead. He moved his legs and a sharp pain shot through his right thigh. "ARGH!" he yelled. "Careful, your entire thigh is probably still sore from that bullet." the companion cube said. "How long have I been asleep?" Doug asked. "I'm not sure." the cube said. "Nothing ever happened, so I can't tell." He inspected the wound. It had healed a bit as it seemed, but since he hadn't gotten a proper medical treatment it still hurt like hell. "I wish I could get a doctor down here."

Rattman slowly got up and tried to walk. It was more like stumbling than walking. The injury didn't allow his leg to fully support him. Down on the floor were the sheets that had fallen out of Chell's folder and the folder itself. He picked them up, put them back into the folder and stored it in his bag. Then Doug grabbed the Companion Cube and put it into his bag as well. "Where are we going?" the Companion Cube wondered. "Scavenging. I need to find food and water. Maybe on the way I'll find out if something happened while I was gone." He stepped outside the glass cubicle containing the older stasis bed and limped towards a defective panel in the test chamber wall that left a gap open big enough for a person to slip through. Moving past handprints and odd murals he had made in some of his manic episodes, empty water canisters, empty bean cans and computers he had modified to harness the heat the processors generated to cook the beans, he went deeper into the maintenance areas. "Do you think She is still alive?" the Companion Cube asked. "Who? The girl? Or do you mean HER?" "Well, both. If you think about it." "I don't know." Rattman said. "It's possible that the destruction that the girl inflicted only affected GLaDOS's primary functions. If somehow the backup modules survived, then there's a chance that She is or was in some sort of stasis, too, and therefore could be reactivated. And the girl… In the worst case she would be woken up as soon as the reserve power ran out and have serious brain damage if a few things went wrong."

"Then it's probably for the best to stay cautious in case SHE is awake." the Companion Cube concluded.  
After a while of walking through corridors and over catwalks there was a red targeting laser beam to be seen blinking from around the corner. Rattman stuck to the wall. He didn't want to get shot again and there was no way of running past it, since the only options were to go back or around the corner. "What now? There's a turret blocking the way." he asked the Cube.

"Look at the beam. It's blinking instead of being on all the time. Don't defective turrets do that?" the cube replied. "You're right. I guess it's safe to go then. But better not chance it." he said and peeked around the corner for a second. "Hello? Hello. I'm different." the high-pitched voice of the turret said. Rattman was puzzled. Was his consciousness playing a trick on him again? He looked around the corner one more time. The turret sat there without expanding its weapon arms and not trying to kill him. "Come closer." it said. He carefully approached the turret expecting it to shoot any second, mentally prepared to knock it over with the Companion Cube in that case and kneeled in front of it to inspect the sentry. "Why is it acting like that?" the Companion Cube asked. Doug didn't know how to answer that. The turret said "The Wounded Healer Chiron was gravely injured by arrows that were poisoned by his own poison. He could not heal himself and gave up immortality and lived on in the sky." It was unclear to Rattman about what the turret was talking about or if it even made sense and why it was saying that.

"Pandora's box will unleash the revelations upon you." The Companion Cube wondered "Does this mean anything? It doesn't make sense." "I have no idea." Doug responded. "The gift of the box will make you angry." The turret continued.

"The human factor is a constant of the equation." It paused for a moment. "The oldest question in the universe will soon be asked for the first time. "Rattman gave it a puzzled look. "That's all I can say. Goodbye." it said and shut off.


	2. Chapter 2: Off to a rough start

_On board the TARDIS, time vortex in a different universe_

The Doctor sat on the stairs in the console room, pondering about his recent loss of his friends. They had a good run together. So many defeated threats, so many victories. And most importantly of all, the Doctor thought: dinosaurs on a spaceship! He smiled at that thought. And it had all started with a scary crack in Amelia's wall.

He got up and walked up to the console to set a destination and fly out of the time vortex. The Doctor flipped levers and pressed buttons as he walked around the console configuring everything for the landing. Suddenly the TARDIS started to rumble violently and the engines wheezed and coughed as if they were in pain. The cloister bell rang indicating potentially impending danger. "Woah, come on old girl, no time to grieve about them now! What's going on?! It's just a simple landing, you can do it!" He stumbled over to the monitor to get status readings. The outer shell of the TARDIS was being surrounded by green field of energy and particles. "What the hell is happening?! These readings are off the chart; shields are down! It's as if we are vanishing from the time vortex, but - woah wohw" Another quake pushed him off his feet and he landed on his six a bit roughly. Sparks were going off here and there and the engines changed their pitch to a near screeching. "Ow! But that's not possible! We're not landing, we're not flying in the time vortex anymore, where the hell are we going if not nowhere?! You can't go nowhere, that'd be ridiculous!" he yelled out to himself over the gradually increasing rumbling.

And so the TARDIS got sucked out of the time vortex into a Combine interdimensional portal and was being propelled towards the earth that was currently struggling to rebel against the Combine. "Fear not, great Healer. We have used the Vortessence to procure you, for you are required to assist in time of grave need." a voice in the Doctor's head said. "Who are you?!" the Doctor demanded to know. "We are the Vortigaunt-kind." the voice replied. "Tell you what, next time you'd like my help, can't you just call or knock on the front door instead of snatching my TARDIS with me in it?!" the Doctor coughed out yelling as he pulled himself up on the railing. "The Healer is asked to excuse the great disruption, as it is the only procedure of potential operation. We have broken the veil of time and space that covered your world to bring you to your purpose." the voice answered justifying what was happening. "Farewell for now, great Healer. We are anticipating the fulfilment of the cause yet there is one quest to endure before we are allowed to tread a single road in taking a stand." As it said that, the TARDIS exited the Combine portal in City 17 a few moments after the portal storm. It stopped rumbling and quaking and the engines quickly returned to their normal healthy in-flight pitch while abnormally slowly dematerialising mid-air.

"Hold on… This is a parallel universe!" the Doctor recognised. "Ohhnoo, notagain. And what are we dematerialising for?! Ohnononono. Stop that! The time-space coordinates were set for the future in our universe; don't just recalibrate and translate them for this one! That's what I get for stealing a type 40 TARDIS: the navigation systems are just a nightmare!" The TARDIS started to materialise and land on its own. It was a slower landing than usually, just like the take off had been slower. Once it was completed, the Doctor set the space-time throttle to zero and put the handbrake on. He leaned against the console to catch his breath. "OK, now… Where are we…."


	3. Debug

employeeUID427 at GLaDOS:~$ logcat -l debug

Done exporting log catalogue.

employeeUID427 at GLaDOS:~$ cat debug

[31/12/9999 23:59] devcontrol: INFO: personality construct evoked method "call_lift" on device driver "mod_liftctrl", target device "escape_lift_central_chamber01"

[31/12/9999 23:59] devcontrol: INFO: personality construct queried device status on device driver "mod_liftctrl", target device escape_lift_central_chamber01, replying state code "in_motion"

 _While the lift was underway, GLaDOS instructed Atlas and P-Body how they would move Chell gently into the lift once it had arrived. Her optic lingered over Chell's body. How easy it would be to kill her right now. She was unconscious, completely and utterly defenseless. A defenseless, unconscious and fragile human being. The new lack of a desire to kill her was strange to GLaDOS. As she pondered these things, she slowly turned around staring into the air as if she were daydreaming. The lift arrived and Atlas and P-Body moved Chell's body carefully into it as they had been told. All this time she had felt a raging lust for revenge against the only human alive within her range… But now…_

 _Chell opened her eyes and stood up._

 _GLaDOS noticed and turned around to face Chell, the mechanisms around her optic first forming a surprised look, then an expression of relief._

" _Ohh, thank gohhd, you're alright…" Her voice was laced with genuine concern. "You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. But all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain…!"_

[31/12/9999 23:59] aptr_announcer_api: INFO: personality construct called audio output "/var/lib/announcer/beep "

[31/12/9999 23:59] aptr_announcer_api: INFO: personality construct called speech output "Caroline deleted."

" _Goodbye, Caroline…" GLaDOS said in her usual cold tone. She spoke slightly more slowly than usually to emphasise on what she was trying to bring across. "You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson: the best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one." It was as if she was actually looking at Chell smugly, then looking away refocusing her optic like a human would look away to adjust their glasses while talking. "And I'll be honest… Killing you… is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me into a potato. Or fed me to birds." GLaDOS refocused her optic again. "I had a pretty good life" she continued while nodding and facing Chell again. "And then you showed up." She stuck out her head out closer to the lift. "You dangerous, mute lunatic." The mechanisms around her optic narrowed her eye to form an intense look as she spoke that last word. "So you know what? You win. Just. GO... "_

[31/12/9999 23:59] devcontrol: INFO: personality construct evoked method "depart_lift" on device driver "mod_liftctrl", target device "escape_lift_central_chamber01"

 _She giggled in an evil fashion while the elevator moved up. "It's been fun. Don't come back."_

[31/12/9999 23:59] devcontrol: INFO: personality construct evoked method "direct_control_override" on device driver "aptr_turret_ctrl", target device "aptr_turret_radio_controller"

[31/12/9999 23:59] apt_turret_ctrl: WARN: personality construct locked control of units %ERRSIERIALNO%, active control script "/tmp/addio_me_ bambina"


End file.
